Chicken Marsala: Easier Than You Might Think

Last night I decided to cook one of H’s favorites – chicken marsala. This is the kind of dish that used to intimidate me (maybe the fancy name?) but I actually found surprisingly simple to make. Since then it’s become a household staple. As usual, I pulled out the J of C and opened to the stained recipe page. Some people take extra special care of their books, but I’m quite the opposite. A little red wine on the cooking page? Great – shows I’ve been using it. The J of C recipe is tried and true but disappoints a little in the mushroom: chicken ratio. So H requested that I double the mushrooms and sauce. Here’s a nice picture of the fungi in the pan:

But before you sauté the mushrooms, you must prep the chicken. As novice as I am, I’ve been watching flour coat chicken for about my whole life. Per usual, I over floured the plate. I hate when I do that; seems so wasteful afterward:

H asked for chicken tenders rather than breasts, and I was happy to comply. Less cutting and the meat cooks more quickly. I was also excited because I actually had fresh parsley in the fridge! I used to avoid buying fresh herbs because I’d use a little and then feel compelled to throw out the rest. For some reason, I was convinced the herbs would go bad the next day. But then I saw Rachael Ray save her herbs in a Ziploc baggie and decided to do the same. So simple. Why had I not thought of it before? Silly me. This time I found a baggie dated from a week earlier and the parsley was fine! Definitely going to do this more often.

All in all, I was happy with the dish. I added one more tbsp of butter (to match the extra marsala wine that I had used) so the sauce was silkier than usual. Not sure the consistency was worth the extra butter, but I definitely think it was needed to counteract the wine. Anyway, definitely something to try and possibly a great dish for dinner parties. Enjoy!